For this show at Madrone Art Bar, I threw a stone of optimism at the divisions that have dominated the news throughout the past year. The simple message of MORE LOVE LESS HATE has been turned into a graphic image used in a repetitive pattern to create a wall drawing spanning the entire length of the main wall 39ft long by 10ft high. In addition, there was 100 posters given out for people to take home and share the message.

“Welcome to the Left Coast” curated by Andres Guerrero & Matt Gonzalez

This exhibition invites artists from San Francisco and/or California, or those who have a personal connection to the west coast, to frame or offer their commentary on the election. It acknowledges the generally held view that the West Coast is “LEFT” -i.e. more progressive than the rest of the country.

Starting on January 1, 2013, during the peak of the gas price war. Michael photographed the intersection just outside his window. Not one day was missed during the calendar year. He then took the daily images and created an ordered grid of all the days.

The grid was then placed on the very street billboard pictured repeatedly in all the images for 27 days (April 11th 2016 to May 8th 2016). During those 27 days, the Ready Made Gallery was photographed within itself, thus creating one final grid. A final circular description of Divisadero and Fell Streets in San Francisco, CA.

As a part of the Open Canvas initiative, a free outdoor interactive Art Exhibition, sponsored by ABSOLUT Vodka.

“Michael Krouse, owner of the Madrone Art Bar and a major leader in the Divisadero Art Walk, contributed a humorous but thought-provoking installation, 1 Big Tree, 1000 Little Trees, where he installed thousands of the well-known tree-shaped air fresheners (the larger ones he made himself) into a tree that lines the sidewalk. His clever appropriation of the popular object as a universal symbol of the meeting of artificiality and the natural simply but boldly explores the relationships between humans and the urban environment with nature.”

“Why does shit have to be so fucked up?” asks Jeremiah Jenkins. Because it is! The world has gone mad. Too much money, too much poverty, too many lies, too many questions, and not enough answers. However, as far as Jeremiah is concerned, that’s a good thing, otherwise he might be working at a gas station near the Appalachian Mountains.

While the world may be “fucked up,” Jenkins’ art is decidedly attractive. His artwork grabs objects with an inherent meaning and flips their form into unique relationships, creating a different sense of space, time, and sensation.Whether it’s social sculpture or performance art, the work is accessible, formal, and layered through the use of (dare I say) metaphor.

“Credit Trap,” (2008) pictures common financial choices and predicaments:predatory lenders, banking vultures, consumerism, convenience culture, and the daily grind—all of which can fit into your wallet. It’s a small piece, sneaking in under the guise of “actual size.” The snap would sting a bit, but the image hurts worse when the viewer realizes that he or she is the helpless mouse in the game of consumerism. Jenkins seems to imply that being in on the joke doesn’t get you out of the trap.

“We live in a world where things are pretty fucked up. Organisms are either trampled or eaten by a larger organism or shut down from the inside by smaller ones.Vital water falls from the sky, rushes through valleys, and sloshes around in giant pools. Electricity shoots suddenly into the ground burning everything it touches.Air moves and blows away mountains. Humans have come up with a lot of shit to make things easier. Easy shelter, easy food, easy survival. But somehow all of our shit got fucked up on its own. It’s my belief that things don’t have to be that way.”

-Jeremiah Jenkins,April 2012

“BP Sand Mandala,” (2011) is a piece heavy with inherited meaning. He draws the British Petroleum Logo with brightly colored beach sand, as a medium. A dead pan representation of globalization, oils spills, marketing, and natural resources that sits flat at your feet.

Jenkins seems to present meaning with a purposeful lack of sophistication, but the effect of his materials allows the viewer’s interpretation to expand.

On February 8, 2013 at SFAI’s Walter & McBean Galleries exhibition devoted to Gutai (an avant-garde post war Japanese art group 1954-1972), Jenkins was asked to re-interpret Kazuo Shiraga’s Challenging Mud. His performance took place at the opening reception and was meant to serve as the “American” version. He took on the persona of an wrestler with a steroid infused attitude and the exhibitionist essence of the American Spirit.

During this action, Jeremiah wrestled himself in a pile of mud. The performance was clearly and intentionally derivative, but stayed well short of the self-refuge of irony.

This is what I like about Jeremiah’s work, shit doesn’t have to be taken so seriously, which in my opinion is so important for the world in which we live. It’s ripe with meaning, but it’s also extremely humorous.

Another of Jenkins’ social sculptures is the American flag made of 100,000 matches. It’s impossible not to think of Johns anytime an artwork incorporates the American Flag —and again, Jenkins doesn’t duck the issue of artistic inheritance—but the physicality of 100,000 matches pulls the piece out of iconography and delivers a tinderbox of new and potentially destructive possibilities.

Jeremiah Jenkins work is fresh and above all unpretentious.The ideas he pictures make art more relevant to society, and society more relevant to art. So as “fucked up” as things are, it allows Jeremiah Jenkins to make artwork that is intelligent and thought provoking.

Duchamp’s very first “readymade” first appeared in his Rue Saint-Hippoloyte studio sometime in 1913. Who could have predicted the repercussions that this would eventually have on twentieth-century art history.

In honor of the 100th anniversary I have made three of my own versions, using contemporary wheels, forks and stools.

The Black and Orange representing San Francisco will be auctioned off April 19th at THE ART AUCTION to benefit the ARTISTS

Collaborative project conceived and coordinated by myself and Steve Lambert with over 60 volunteers on the eve of George W. Bush’s inauguration in 2001. Video edited with Dan Janos. 1st place winner of 1st Annual Adbusters TV video contest.